Beausoleil Leaves Saint-Domingue

by Darrell Bourque

There was nothing he saw here that he did not love, the way the sea was always near, how in the higher elevations the air thinned and clarified itself, how blooms and fruits of blooms grew everywhere and touched everything, how the ear was filled with a hundred tongues he understood, how he had met in room on room

with men the great leader would know, how drinks they shared had set them all straight about what they had to do from here. In those rooms and with those men he saw anew the mechanics and the heart of rebellion, a thing not his nor theirs. It was clear their fates

would set them on different paths in different lands. The tall grasses these people grew would hide them, keep them strong and ready. What they were native to was their gate to freedom and he was looking for another way. What had once been many now were few

and it was his job to find a place that would finally take them in. When he left, his fear was that the island may have been his best hope and he had sailed from it. What loomed over him was the thought that he had come all this way to let go of everything, no clear reading of loss or gain, his ship adrift again, and every face he loved etched with doom.